BURE, FIRST WEEK OF OCCUPATION

#OCCUPYBURE #SUMMEROFEMERGENCY

Since Sunday the 19h of June, we, inhabitants of Mandres-en-Barrois, regulars to Bure and its surrounding areas, collectives, associations, farmers, have been occupying in a thousand ways the communal forest of Mandres-en-Barrois in order to block works at the nuclear dump project CIGEO. Blocking this site means creating zones of resistance in the flimsy empire of ANDRA (the agency behind the project). If capitalism is a digestive tube, Bure is the rectum that needs to be constipated.

In this liberated forest, we’ve seen farmers, locals of here and elsewhere, associations, collectives join forces to hold the barricades under a halo of foggy moonlight.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen more inhabitants of Mandres-en-Barrois in one week than in several months of public gatherings, door to door conversations and big protests.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen kilos and kilos of food and materials come in, despite police controls and roadblocks. We’ve seen a 50m2 den and a collective kitchen built in the blink of an eye.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen a friendly farmer hold the barricades throughout the whole night, only to leave at 4AM by bike in order to milk his cows, 50km away.

We’ve heard and read an array of vivid calls to occupy, sabotage, celebrate against the constructions and block them.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen a depressed friend reconquer his smile and contemplate the stars.

We’ve seen other friends, impassioned plant lovers, pick wonders from under the trees. Wild asparagus, sweet woodruff and other secrets of the forest.

We’ve heard, at every hour of the day and of the night a resonating cry : « WHOSE FOREST IS THIS !? »« IT IS OURS ! ».
We’ve seen this cry become a stronger reality every day.

In this liberated forest, we’ve seen joyful actions of collective sabotage, moving faces, masked and unmasked. We’ve seen chainsaws come out of nowhere to bring down all the fences and build stronger barricades. We’ve seen smiles on unknown and unexpected faces, and big hammers to bust enormous metallic drilling tubes. We’ve felt in the evening air, around the campfire, over a glass of wine in the murmur of checkerberries, immense calm. And the intuition that the intensity of what we are experiencing is, unlike the false promises of this nuclear dump, irreversible.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen occupiers give a helping hand to a farmer to pick up his estovers, only to discover a faraway parcel of land overlooked by a venerable beech.

In this liberated forest, we’ve seen ANDRA and the authorities try to set a strategy of tension by sending their mercenaries and by grossly intimidating farmers and locals, who depsite this, keep coming.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen the beginning of a precarious balance full of complementarities and of tensions, always needing to be reworked through self-defense, construction, and links with the outside world. We’ve sweated under the sun digging trenches, marched kilometres carrying hundreds of planks over barricades, gestured over the phone for hours, talking to medias, support groups and friends of all horizons.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen treehouses grow faster than mushrooms.

We’ve seen media hungry for sensationalism label us as a « ZAD » and print the image of masked, hostile occupiers all over what is in reality a liberating occupation, one that is in continuity with 20 years of struggle against the nuclear dump.

In this liberated forest we’ve seen, at dawn, wide eyes astonished by the fact that we’re still here, we’re holding on, onto this small victory, effectively blocking any contruction for the first time in years. « Fuck ! We’re actually occupying this forest ! » Breakfast in the sun, and tranquility on a platform freed of barbed wire.

We’ve seen these barbed wire fences travel all the way from the forest to lock the nucleocrats and their propaganda inside the CLIS (institution for lubricating citizens). We’ve seen ANDRA reinforce security measures and close its doors on the weekend of the 25th/26th of June while ours are wide open.

We’ve seen this forest become the common ground much needed in order to transform a constellation of groups and individuals struggling aginst the nuclear dump into an actual movement.

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